CityStreets Mapghan Squares Collection

Have you ever heard of c2c? It’s a fairly new phenomenon for me personally, but I love how I can make crochet squares with this beautiful texture, and have the entire graphical world open to me. There’s been lots of ideas floating through my head, but as I watched J play with his Legos and his toy cars, I decided to make him a CityStreets Mapghan for Christmas to help him in his play. Plus, if he uses it as a blanket, maybe he’ll play with it when he wakes up and I get 5 extra minutes of sleep!

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If you’re not familiar with c2c (corner to corner) crochet squares, here’s a quick pictorial to get you started. This is not a comprehensive c2c crochet tutorial, but there’s plenty of help on the Internet and on YouTube. I shot this pictorial for another project, so please note that for the CityStreets Mapghan, I worked in hdc instead of dc, and used 2 slip stitches instead of 3. I wanted the squares a bit smaller so I could get more detail into each square.

Written instructions for the “dc c2c”, working along with the pictorial:

Work 6 ch. Starting with the 4th chain from hook, work 1 dc in each chain. You’ll have 3 dcs, making a “tile”.

Work 6 ch. Starting with the 4th chain from hook, work 1 dc in each chain.

Twist your work so you can slip stitch into the ch 3 of the first tile you made. If you’re making a color change, pull up the new color to complete the slip stitch.

Ch 3. Work 3 dc into the same ch 3 space. Now you’re at the edge again, so ch 6, and work 1 dc in each chain, starting with the 4th chain.

Twist your work, slip stitch into the ch 3 of the next tile, ch 3, work 3 dc into the same ch 3 space. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On to the mapghan! It’s going to take me forever to make enough squares to build a decently sized afghan for J, and I hope to include other square designs in this ‘system’. I wanted to share these designs now so you can also get started making something in time for the holidays!

Supplies for CityStreets Mapghan

white, gray and yellow yarn. H (5 mm) hook embroidery needle scissors

Instructions for CityStreets Mapghan

As I mentioned above, I used hdc for these squares to minimize size while still keeping a square shape.

So, I started with only a ch 4. Working into the 3rd chain from the hook, work 1 hdc in each chain.

Ch 4. Working into the 3rd chain from the hook, work 1 hdc in each chain.

Twist, slip stitch into the ch 2 space, ch 2, work 2 hdc into the ch 2 space. And so on and so forth.

Because the mapghan squares are made up of tiles, all you need to create them are the graph charts showing where color changes. And graph charts can be made with c2c crochet, or puff stitches, or as a graphghan, your choice. I don’t have specific written instructions for each square (#walloftext), just the charts, below: straight road, basic turn, turn with crosswalk, t-intersection with crosswalk, and the 4-way stop.

The CityStreets charts are intended for personal use only, and not to be sold or distributed commercially in any way. When sharing, please share the link to this post, and not the graphs themselves, in Facebook groups, online, or in email. Please see my full Terms of Use for details.

User beware, there are lots of ends involved. I chose not to carry my yarn as I changed colors, and used short lengths of the different yarns on bobbins to keep my yarn somewhat untangled. For reference, the block of 3 squares for the yellow/white ‘paint lines’ took about 3.5 feet of yarn, using an H hook. All that means that there were lots of ends to weave in!

If you’re not keen on making these into a blanket or a playmat, another idea would be to keep them separate and let the lucky recipient of these squares rearrange them at will. They’d make a great companion accessory to any little boy or girl who likes building cities and playing make-believe!

Can you imagine being a little person with a stretch of road in front of you? Vroom vroom!

If you liked this post, I hope you come like my Facebook page or follow me on Instagram, where I share works in progress, sneak peeks of patterns in the works, and other fun facets of my day!

I’d also love to see the cities and landscapes you build with my CityStreets Collection, so share those photos on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag #1dwcitystreets!

This is great! I was just thinking about doing this, so having these charts made it a smidgen easier to decide how to do it. I’m doing country roads and such, so a little different, but I’m thinking if whoever gets these for Christmas likes them enough, maybe I’ll make a City Expansion Pack with these!

I really love this idea (and leaving them separate so my little designer can rearrange them at will). I think I’ll probably do green for the edge of the road to imitate grass, and then I can even do a little park square. Forget my little designer; *I’ll* be the one playing with these!